Biggest Internal Challenges Facing the Jaguars for Rest of 2022 Season

Jaguars Defense Is In Serious Trouble

Problems have abounded for the Jaguars throughout the season across the team making what was seemingly a promising season in September turn towards the worse. For the first time all season, the Jaguars weren't competitive at any point in the game and weren't even able to force a punt once against the Lions offense. There is something incredibly broken on the defense because the roster talent isn't close to lining up with the results on the field. Players have often been completely lost, confused on assignments, and not able to execute on critical plays that control the course of the game.

There's an argument between whether the pass rush issues have caused the coverage issues or the coverage issues have caused the pass rush issues, but it's clear that neither has been getting help. I think that defensive line issues come down to a few things. First of all is the poor performances of the big name players. Josh Allen and Travon Walker have not been able to produce enough sacks of negative plays for the defense. Even with issues and roster holes on the defense, great players are able to overcome that. In addition, the Jaguars don't have any interior players who can be used consistently on pass and rush snaps. Having no versatility has handicapped the Jaguars defense and essentially tells opposing offenses what the Jaguars are expecting to see. Getting a balanced interior player would go a long ways towards more success on the defensive line.

In regards to the coverage issues, nearly everything comes down to absolutely abysmal play opposite of Tyson Campbell. Whoever has been on the field has been consistently abused and used all season long. What makes this more frustrating is that the Jaguars haven't been proactive at all in resolving this issue. Even though Darious Williams has struggled this year, you have to put him outside at some point and see if you've got anything there. Continuing to play him in a slot where he's struggled only forces you to have two needs at cornerback. It can't hurt to move him to his natural position and have an answer on what your secondary needs will be in 2023. As long as the Jaguars refuse to make changes, the same coverage problems will persist and the Jaguars will have more questions than answers on how to solve it past this season.

Jaguars Are Leading The League In Drops, Again

A familiar issue has returned to front and center for the Jaguars, dropped passes. Dominic Seibert pointed out on Twitter that the 25 dropped passes by the Jaguars receiving corps this year equated to six entire percentage points in Trevor Lawrence's competition percentage. If you do even more math, seventeen percent of incompletions this year have come from drops. That is absolutely unacceptable for any NFL team to do in any given season. For a franchise that is so dependent on the success of their young quarterback, there has been very limited help given to him so far in his career. Thankfully that should change next year with the addition of Calvin Ridley, but the story needs to be written before it can be told.

The Jaguars receiving corps has had to rely heavily on Christian Kirk throughout this season. He's been the Jaguars' clear best signing from the last free agency period and is about to reach a milestone thousand yard season. He's been able to bring an element of separation to the team and is only behind Travis Kelce in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns in the redzone. That should easily bring a smile to the face of every Jaguars fan. Although Zay Jones and Evan Engram were the main culprits when it came to drops last week, every receiver has had a role in the issue. Every starting receiver for the Jaguars including Travis Etienne has had at least three drops on the year. With the change in coaching at the receiver position and brand new players, it's almost a mystery what the cause.

Choosing Confidence Over Cockiness

Before I begin, I will prelude this by saying that there's some speculation involved in this. I think that the Jaguars have been to cocky and underestimated their opponents this season multiple times. Two of the three examples I'll give have evidence and the final one is more speculative based on the first two. Rewind back to Week 4. The Jaguars had demolished the Chargers on the road for the first time in the history of the franchise and arguably lost against the Eagles due to freak weather conditions that caused four fumbles on offense. Everyone was riding high and people were talking about the playoffs. There was even a 59% chance that the Jaguars made the postseason.

Then they lost to the Texans for the tenth straight time. At first, I thought it was just that the Texans always had our number but the problem was deeper than that. Marvin Jones Jr. shockingly mentioned that the Jaguars were sleeping on the Texans that week. If you have lost nine straight times to an opponent, the last thing you should ever consider, regardless of whether it's an amateur high school team or the Kansas City Chiefs, is to sleep on them. If you thought maybe they had learned their lesson then, it was clear they hadn't. During the following week, Travon Walker called Matt Ryan "a sitting duck in the backfield." Matt Ryan and the Colts responded by avenging their early season loss with what was potentially Ryan's last great performance.

This trend of overlooking opponents this year has raised the question to me of whether the Jaguars may have felt this way about the Lions. The previous week, Jacksonville came off of an emotional victory against the Baltimore Ravens where Trevor Lawrence put together his first 'true' game winning drive. Once again, the media exalted the Jaguars and some outlets even predicted that the Jaguars would sneak into the playoffs. No one had said that in December since 2017 when the Jaguars were leading the division. It is purely speculation whether this could've been a cause of the Jaguars loss to the Lions, but it has undoubtedly been a struggle for the Jaguars to overcome in the 2022 NFL season.

Many Of The Issues Will Have To Be Resolved In The Offseason

Unfortunately, the issues aforementioned and any others are unlikely to be fixed this year. It's going to take coaches becoming more comfortable with their job and for players to put it together and elevate their level of play. The performance of one person on a team often impacts the performances of many others and there have just been too many members of the team having a negative impact. Jaguars fans will need to hope for the development of these players and for this team to finish the season strong, even if that very likely still ends in elimination from postseason contention. The Jaguars need to learn to win more than acquire a high draft pick. As of now the Jaguars will have good draft selection and maybe against what most fans think, they'll have the ability to pursue free agents by backloading long-term contracts.

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